Guilt trip - story by hardman

Guilt Trip

“This is it. Take a left here.”

“You sure?” asked the young man driving the car.

“This is fucking it! Left!”

The pick-up lurched into the narrow street, small bungalows on both sides.

“‘Here! Here!”

The white vehicle slowed, stopped, and all three young men in it looked across at a bungalow that looked better-kept than the rest, with a white picket fence and a dark green gate, half-open.

.

The passenger door opened and they guy who had been giving directions got out, walked to the gate, a sheaf of papers jammed under his left arm. He checked the house number on his cell phone and pushed the gate open. He strode along the short path and climbed the few steps to the front door. He turned back towards his companions.

“You stay there.”

“Jesus Hunter, you sure about this?” asked the driver, sticking his head out of the window for emphasis.

There was no reply. Hunter was reading the small sign under the doorbell: www.expiate.com This was the place. He pressed the doorbell.

Footsteps. Slow footsteps. The door opened and a bulky man in his sixties, short salt and pepper hair, glasses, looked him up and down with an expression that was neither hostile nor welcoming.

“Hunter.”It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes sir”

“Willard Pearson. Come in”.

Hunter followed the older man down a hallway, rooms on either side with their doors shut, a television blaring in one of them – a football game. At the end of the hallway was a bigger room nearly the width of the house, looking out on to a small neat back garden. A big woman about the same age as Pearson sat at a dining table on the left, the screen of the notebook open in front of her throwing pale blue light on her face. She smiled sweetly at Hunter, who nodded. There were no introductions.

“Have a seat” Pearson said, pointing to the nearest chair. Hunter sat. Pearson sat opposite him.

“They your friends outside?”

“Yes sir.”

“You want to ask them in?”

“No sir. Not yet.”

“Documents?”

Hunter pushed the bunch of papers across. Pearson straight away began scanning them, turning the pages quickly, murmuring to himself occasionally as his eyes ran down the pages.

“You’re well prepared.”

“Yes sir.”

Pearson pushed the papers towards the woman. She spread them in front of her and began tapping at the keyboard, glancing at the pages now and then, tuning them one by one. A couple of minutes was all it took. She pressed a key, waited, read the screen, lifted her head and smiled sweetly at them both.

“All in good order” she said.

Pearson grunted. “Good” he said.“No record, no outstanding charges or warrants, no mentions in the media. I can’t take anyone who’s in trouble with the law, you understand. But all’s well, We can proceed.”

“Yes sir.”

The printer on a side table started up. It spat out five pages while they all watched it as if they’d never seen a printer before. The woman got up, collected the pages, took them to Pearson.

“These are indemnities. Sign and date them all.”

Hunter did as he was told, reading each one quickly and then signing. He had seen the texts on the website and these were exact copies.

“Payment?”

Before Hunter could reply, the woman spoke up. “All in order, Willard. Funds transferred yesterday.” She smiled sweetly at Hunter again.

“Good. Good. Now we need to set a time.”

Hunter’s brow creased. “I was hoping it could be now sir.”

“Now?!! Pearson’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “There’s a fourteen day cooling off period.”

“But is that compulsory?”asked Hunter, a little too sharply.

Pearson looked at the young face, pale and grim. There was guilt there alright, guilt tearing at this kid’s guts. And Pearson had already had to turn two customers away that day - a scrawny religious fanatic in his fifties and a kid about Hunter’s age who was clearly on something. It was too risky to take anyone whose judgement was impaired.

“You’ve elected for the third option on the list. That’s the third harshest in a list of fifteen, son. You need to be pretty damn sure.”

Hunter bowed his head. “I’m as sure about this as I ... I can possibly be, sir”

Pearson looked across at the woman, who smiled and nodded.

“Are the boys still here?” he asked the woman.

“They’re staying for dinner, Willard. I told you that already.” Pearson turned back towards Hunter.

“OK. OK. Let’s see what we can do. Your medical results look fine, but let’s take a closer look. Stand up, son.“

The chairs scraped as both men stood up. Hunter moved around to the end of the table, stood stock still with his arms by his sides. Pearson came round behind him, brushed his hands across the broad thick shoulders through the white t-shirt, squeezed the muscle in the big upper arms, ran his hands down the broad back. He came round to the front, pressed his fingers into the thick pecs.
‘’Must be two inches of muscle there, son.”

Hunter blushed. “Yes sir”.

“Lift your shirt.”

Hunter peeled it up over his abs and chest, looping it over the back of his head, placing his hands on his head. The older man’s hands felt rough against Hunter’s smooth young skin as they ran over the faint ripples of Hunters abs and back up over the deep, strong chest. He was a big-boned, fit, well-fed kid, built solid, built for strength.

Pearson crouched, squeezing the muscles of the kid’s calves, then sliding his hands under the loose khaki cargo shorts. Hunter stiffened, but did not move. Pearson’s fingers pressed into the long thick muscles of the tree-trunk thighs.

“Good and strong. That’s important.”

“Yes sir” Hunter replied, his voice a little strained as the hands kept wandering under his pants.

The hands withdrew. Pearson stood up. “Shorts down”. Hunter blushed again as he bent to shuck them down. His broad strong ass strained the boxer briefs he was wearing. The older man grabbed a handful of butt cheek and squeezed.

“Yeah. Good and strong. Now let’s see what you’ve got in front.”

Hunter hesitated a second, then slid the briefs down to his knees, staring hard at the neat garden in back as two pairs of eyes examined his crown jewels.

“OK. Cover up again. We’ll make a start.”

Hunter went out to get his friends. The followed him back into the house and stood fidgeting nervously at the end of the room as Pearson told Hunter to loosen his shorts and bend over the table.

“Hold his wrists down boys. It’s important that he doesn’t move too much.” The two young men were too stunned to argue. They each grabbed one of Hunter’s wrists and pressed it against the surface of the table.

Pearson walked out of the room and returned with a pencil-thick cane, about five feet long.

“Jesus wept””one of the young men muttered when he saw it

“This will not leave permanent marks, son, provided you keep still. But the pain will make every movement for the next few days very memorable”.

“Yes sir” came the muffled voice.

Pearson yanked Hunter’s shorts down and then the briefs, revealing the pale curves of the dull, taut, pale ass, clenched hard, the mounds of muscle gathered in the middle and broad, shallow dimples on each side.

“Try to relax your butt cheeks, son. Less damage that way” Pearson said quietly. Without further warning, he laid into the bare butt with the cane, one stroke every five or six seconds, the cane whining through the air and biting into the bare skin with a loud, thick thwack. Hunter cried out at the first and the second, the sharpness of the pain catching him by surprise, as if someone was lashing his bare ass with white hot wires.

One of his ashen-faced friends let go in shock until Hunter himself bellowed at him to hold tight. The beating continued unabated, a torrent of noise and pain, of the howling cane and the sound of cane colliding with skin, the barely suppressed grunts and hissing breath as Hunter clenched his teeth and tried to hold the pain inside.

The two friends looked away, clinging desperately to Hunter’s wrists, wanting to let him free but trying to keep holding him down, feeling his big strong body clench and tremble as he struggled to absorb each new wave of pain. Every few seconds one or the other would look back at the weals criss-crossing the upper few inches of Hunter’s naked butt, weals that started out pearly white but soon turned pink and then angry red.

As suddenly as it had started, it was over. Twenty strokes delivered in less than two minutes by Pearson’s surprisingly strong arm. Hunter’s friends let go but he stayed bent over the table for a good minute, taking deep breaths and groaning softly to himself. Finally he straightened, pushing himself up with his arms, his breath catching as the movement sent fresh waves of biting pain through his butt and back. Pearson jerked the half-naked young man’s briefs up and them the shorts, Hunter’s breath hissing through his teeth once more at the touch of his clothes on the fresh weals.

Pearson put the cane on the table and led the way back along the hallway and out the front door. Hunter followed him, each step making him wince and catch his breath. His two friends followed, their young faces pale and drawn.

Two other men waited just outside the front gate - both of them clearly Pearson’s sons, both in their thirties and both big-boned and heavy. Their father went through the gate first, then Hunter. The two big men motioned him to kneel. He obeyed. Pearson stepped forward and placed his hand on the top of Hunters head, pressing it down and forward. He held the young man’s head there while his sons picked up the large wooden beam that had been propped up against the front fence, and lowered it onto the back of Hunter’s neck, its weight forcing his head and shoulders even lower. One son held the beam steady while the other strapped Hunter’s right arm, fully extended, to the under-side of the beam. Then they swapped roles so that Hunter was kneeling with both arms outstretched and pinioned to the beam, the weight of the wood pressing him down and digging hard into bowed neck.

“Up!! Up!!” Pearson yelled at Hunter and the big strong young man heaved, grunting long and loud from deep in his belly, his breathing deep and rasping, until he got to his feet, each of Pearson’s sons holding on to one end of the beam, stopping it from tipping too far one way or the other. Once he was steadier on his feet, they guided him down the big step from the pavement to the road, right in front of the pick-up, turned him to face away from the vehicle, and urged him forward on his journey.

It would have been two hundred yards to the far end of the street, all of it uphill and steeper than it looked. By the time they got there, Hunter’s big chest was working overtime to suck in air and keep his muscles pushing him forward. They turned left, along a level stretch of road, with Pearson stopping their progress every now and then to let traffic pass. Word was spreading. Some people watched them pass from their front windows, some from their front doors, and a few came down to the sidewalk to watch.

It was a cool and cloudy afternoon but sweat was already running into Hunter’s eyes and he could barely see where he was going, all of his energies focused on putting one foot in front of the other as the eighty-pound beam bored into his neck and pressed down on his shoulders and back.

A right turn and a left, and then another climb, far steeper than the first. He was gasping now, his knees trembling with each heave of his strong legs. Twice he staggered, but the two Pearson boys were quick to stop him falling, holding him and the beam still until he was ready to move on.

He was big and fit but after another minute of climbing he was nearly spent, barely able to take the next step, his eyes filled with stinging sweat , all twenty of the weals on his ass burning. His legs were shaking and his arms and shoulders twitching with cramp.

At the top of the slope, they paused for Hunter to regain his breath. One of his friends begged Pearson to stop now, to set Hunter free, to bring an end to the madness. Hunter yelled at him with what breath he had left: “Fuck off!! Just fuck off it you can’t take it!!!”

Silently, they resumed the journey, gently downhill this time, past small groups of people gathered on the sidewalk to watch. Another left turn and the ground was level again, a narrow street that emptied into a small suburban park. Hunter could see dusty grass under his feet. A park bench to his left, a small tree to his right.

Then had reached their destination and Hunter was made to kneel once more, like a beast of burden. The broad leather straps were removed and the beam lifted off his neck. The sudden rush of blood to his arms made him whimper, and he toppled forward, throwing out his arms to stop his fall. One of them folded under the weight and he rolled onto the grass and lay on his side, motionless save for the rapid noisy rise and fall of his deep chest.

The Pearson boys got him to his feet, none too gently, and held him until he could stand without support. Pearson senior offered him water and he drank it greedily. The older man watched him finish the water and then said “Let’s go” his sons.

They slipped Hunter’s sweaty shirt up over his chest and back and over his head. He raised his arms so they could slide it off. In the mid-afternoon light, the beads of sweat in his short light brown hair gleamed. His bare torso looked huge, thick shoulders, an almost hairless chest with the meaty pecs curving in, set off by the large, pink-brown nipples, meeting at a deep cleft in the middle. There was a thin halo of hair around his navel, and a fine line that trailed down to disappear under the waistband of his briefs peeking above his shorts.

The Pearson boys led him forward to the thick wooden upright beam buried in the pale dusty soil of the park twenty feet in from the edge of the busy road that the park fronted onto. Passing cars began to slow and some pulled over. Hunter was turned so that his back was to the road. He raised his arms when asked and each of his wrists was bound to an thick metal ring bolted onto the opposite face of the beam, stretching his naked back and bringing him up onto the balls of his feet.

From somewhere a multi-tailed whip was produced – wooden handle, six or seven long, knotted leather thongs. Once again, without fanfare, Pearson senior raised the whip and began laying into Hunter’s broad back with slow, deliberate strokes. The thongs whistled through the air and bit into Hunter’s smooth pale skin with a sharp cutting noise, each blow making the young man’s body jerk, and wrenching a sharp cry out of his throat. It was too much for one of his friends, who turned his back and walked away, unable to watch any more but still hearing the voice of the whip and Hunter’s muffled cries of pain.

A small crowd had gathered, standing on the sidewalk watching the flogging from a few feet away. On the other side of the road was a busy train station and the early birds beginning to come home from a day’s work began to swell the numbers. They winced and gasped as the whip tore at Hunter’s back, but they did not look away.

“Eighteen” Pearson muttered under his breath and paused to look at the pattern of lash marks and the odd bleeding gouge where the knots had bitten deepest. He selected his target, raised his arm, and brought the leather thongs down across the upper back again, crossing previous welts, making Hunter’s whole body jerk and then clench, the mounds of muscle in his back rippling.

“Twenty” he muttered as the last lash slid away from Hunter’s lacerated back, covered in with red welts from his shoulders to the small of his back. He handed the whip to one of his sons, who tucked it into his belt before walking over the help his brother lift the beam Hunter had carried from the house and bring it over closer to the upright, resting it on small blocks of wood to keep it a few inches off the ground. .

They untied Hunter’s wrists, turned him to face the growing crowd. He staggered, but they held him up and then lowered him to sit on the grass at the foot of the upright beam, his torn back leaning against the rough wood, his face twisted in pain, eyes closed, arms hanging limply by his sides.

 

Lengths of rope were produced, coiled carefully, and placed at each end of the beam on the ground. Pearson senior drew a folded piece of paper from his pocket, opened it, read its brief contents aloud to no one in particular, affirming that Hunter had entered into the process of his own free will as atonement for unnamed thoughts, words, acts or deeds.

His sons lifted Hunter to his feet, held him up until they were sure he could stand unassisted. They shucked down his shorts and he stepped out of them, standing there in the small park naked save for a pair of snug boxer briefs.

“You want to strip down or will we do it for you later?”Pearson asked quietly. In response, Hunter grasped the waistband of his briefs and bent at the waist so he could slide them down. The movement made him gasp and he froze in mid-movement as the welts on his back and ass sent fresh surges of pain through his big-boned frame. He tried again, groaning as he bent lower.

The brothers were impatient, one of them crouching in front of Hunter and easing the briefs down to his ankles and off. He moved away, giving the crowd, now about seventy people, anunimpeded view of Hunter’s buck naked body and in particular of his trimmed, tightly curled dark brown bush, his big shaved balls, clenched into his body from the shock and pain, and his thick uncut penis, the heavily veined foreskin stretched over the tip of big cock head, not quite reaching the tip.

There was a murmur from the crowd as the on-lookers took in Hunter’s pale nakedness there in the suburban park, his strong thickly muscled torso and legs, his dark crown jewels, his pleasant boyish face now streaked with sweat, his deep blue eyes puffed and bloodshot.

But they did not enjoy the view for long. The brothers came for Hunter now, standing on each side of him, reaching down to grasp his arms and lift him to his feet. His face contorted as the movement stretched and twisted the welts freshly made by cane and whip, but he got to his feet and stood, unsupported for a few seconds, before the brothers guided him the few steps to the beam on the ground. He was forced to his knees, and then moved backwards so that his rump rested on the grass, his knees bent and his legs drawn up close. When they made him lay back, the wave of pain was too much and he yelped and then cried out long and loud when his shoulders touched the beam.

The Pearsons then stretched his arms out along the beam and crouched to bind his wrists to it, stretching Hunter’s arms as far as they could, bringing fresh cries of pain from the young man. As Hunter lay there, face up, naked, helpless, the crowd murmured as they saw the hammer and the nails in Pearson senior’s hands – long, thin, shining vicious-looking spikes of metal, each threaded through a circular disk of pale wood.

The older man crouched at Hunter’s left hand, pressed the tip of the nail into the centre of the open palm, and began to hammer the nail in, through the flesh of the hand and deep into the wood, seven or eight short, sharp blows. Hunter clenched his whole body, teeth gritted, eyes jammed shut, and tried to hold himself still as the nail ripped through his palm. He clenched his ass hard, pushing his hips up, and as the hammering went on his back arched further and further until the pain and torment burst out of him in a spray of spit and a below like a big wounded animal. His kept his back arched even after the nail was in and the washer pressed hard against his palm, shuddering as the new pain from his pierced hands coursed through his body.

Finally, he collapsed back onto the ground. Pearson was already crouched over Hunter’s right hand, arm raised, the tip of the nail pressed into the centre of the thick hand. The metallic hammering started up once more, quick sure blows. Hunter jerked and twisted at each blow, uttering short agonised cries each time the nail was driven further through his hand and into the wood below.

Hunter’s bid strong naked body was still convulsing after Pearson had stood up and dropped the hammer. His sons lifted the beam, dragging Hunter’s torso up with it. Pearson senior grabbed Hunter around the knees and together the three of them lifted the beam and its naked burden up and staggered the few feet across to the upright. Somehow the brothers managed to raise the beam over their heads and slide it down on the peg cut into the top of the upright. Their father let go of Hunter’s legs, and the helpless young man groaned as the welts stretched and twisted and the movement dragged on the nails.

The brothers quickly tied Hunter’s ankles tightly to the upright, making sure his knees were bent, standing back to look over their handiwork, then moving aside so the crowd, still growing, could get a clear view of the naked young man crucified in the park, and squirm at the bright red blood that oozed from under the wooden washers, trickled down the wood and dripped into the grass below.

Hunter’s eyes were open. He saw one of his friends standing at the front in front of the crowd.. Still gasping from the pain, he called out.

“Now I’ve done it Tyson. I’ve done it. Oh god I found the courage and I did it.”And then he smiled, a weak and twisted smile, but a smile all the same.

As the afternoon wore on, the crowd waxed and waned, growing larger as commuter trains arrived at the station, thinning after each group got their fill of the crucifixion in the park. Mostly people stayed to watch Hunter heave himself up a few times, to hear him groan with relief as some of the terrible drag came off his arms and shoulders, holding himself there with the muscled of his tree-trunk legs bulging and straining and them sliding back down with a long moan through gritted teeth.

They watched the cross drag and twist and wrench his upper body out of shape, stretching the thick pecs, twisting the long muscles of his powerful arms into unnatural shapes and angles, trying to tear his shoulders and elbows apart.

They marvelled at the strength of his thighs as he heaved himself up again, the thick ropes of muscle swelling and flexing. They looked at his young face, wondering what had led him to do this, and whether the torment would bring him some sort of peace.

 

 

And they gawked as long as was decent at the impressive ball sac, shaved and pink, now loose and swinging; at the two big eggs that filled it, one hanging a fraction lower than the other; at the thick five inch club of a cock that swayed and bumped between his powerful thighs every time he moved, its translucent foreskin now pulled back further from the tip, the plum-shaped cock head clearly outlined under it.

By the time the three hours were up, at 6.41pm by Pearson’s watch, the street lights had come on and the stream of commuters coming home had slowed. Only a handful of people were there for the last 30 minutes, watching Hunter’s big strong buck naked body struggle and gasp, twist and squirm, heave and slide, groan and squeal as the cross kept up its relentless torture. His eyes were glazed now, staring hard at nothing, all of his energies bent to fighting the terrible drag of his own weight that threatened to tear his body apart, using all his fading strength to resist and to endure.

And endure he did, wracked by pain in every part of his body, his whole body pale and gray, his eyes open but only barely seeing. They cut the ropes at his ankles, forcing another despairing groan out of his big chest, and then they pushed the cross-beam off the upright, staggered with the weight as they lowered both body and beam to the ground. The nails were wrenched out with even more pain that the nailing, though Hunter was too spent to do more than squeal and press his ankles hard into the grass. They wrapped bandages around his hands and then lifted his unresisting body, half-carrying , half-dragging the naked young man over to the waiting ambulance.

Pearson senior watched as the young man tried to smile and raise his hand in acknowledgement and maybe gratitude as the doors closed. They nearly all did that.

They cleaned up the site, leaving the upright in place for next time. One of the brothers wiped the blood from the cross-beam, picked up the beam and balanced it on one shoulder. All three set out for the walk home where they knew dinner would be waiting.